Music

David Cassidy Talks Alcoholism, Dementia in ‘Last Session’ Clip

"There is no sign of me having dementia at this stage of my life. It was complete alcohol poisoning," singer reveals of liver disease

June 6, 2018

The final recording sessions of David Cassidy’s life will be the focus of an upcoming A&E documentary about the late Partridge Family actor and Seventies pop idol.

David Cassidy: The Last Session finds the singer in the studio as he worked on what would be his final EP Songs My Father Taught Me, which was released posthumously after Cassidy’s November 27th death. Over the course of the studio footage, Cassidy’s health is seen deteriorating dramatically.

The two-hour documentary, airing June 11th, also features Cassidy providing an overview of his own life through never-before-heard audio tapes from 1976, as well as interviews with fellow Partridge Family stars and artists like Alice Cooper, Kim Barnes and Hal Blaine.

On Wednesday, A&E shared a preview from the documentary, a taped phone conversation between Cassidy and a producer in the days after the singer was diagnosed with a “liver disease.”

“The first few days I was unconscious and near death. The last week or so my memory has come back,” Cassidy says in the phone call. “That’s such a blessing. That means I’m cognizant of my surroundings. That I’m alive, and it’s daytime, and I know what day of the week it is. There is no sign of me having dementia at this stage of my life. It was complete alcohol poisoning. And the fact is, I lied about my drinking.”

“The head doctor at the hospital, she said, ‘I believe that your dementia was directly related to your alcoholism,'” Cassidy adds.

“David Cassidy was one of the most beloved teen icons of his time, experiencing an unfathomable amount of fame at such a young age that few will ever truly understand and we are honored to let David tell his own story through his own words,” Elaine Frontain Bryant, Executive Vice President and Head of Programming at A&E Network, said in a statement.

However, the documentary does not come with approval from the Cassidy family. “We, the Cassidy family, were not affiliated with the A&E documentary. All we are interested in is maintaining the legacy of the icon he was,” David’s son Beau Cassidy said in a statement to Reuters.